Poetry Corner

Treetopleaf · October 4, 2007, 9:38pm

Wow, what a lot of poetry lovers. But no T.S. Elliot (Prufrock)? No Mathew Arnold (Dover Beach)? My ‘veteran’ teacher for senior year HS English, a spinster who once taught my father, who told us to read Dover Beach on prom night. So I did, and studied it, and fell in love with it.

I’ve always loved “Song of the Screw”, and since it took me so long to find it online I’ll post it here.

Song of the Screw

A moving form or rigid mass,
Under whate’er conditions
Along successive screws must pass
Between each two positions.
It turns around and slides along–
This is the burden of my song.

The pitch of screw, if multiplied
By angle of rotation,
Will give the distance it must glide
In motion of translation.
Infinite pitch means pure translation,
And zero pitch means pure rotation.

Two motions on two given screws,
With amplitudes at pleasure,
Into a third screw-motion fuse;
Whose amplitude we measure
By parallelogram construction
(A very obvious deduction.)

Its axis cuts the nodal line
Which to both screws is normal,
And generates a form divine,
Whose name, in language formal,
Is “surface-ruled of third degree.”
Cylindroid is the name for me.

Rotation round a given line
Is like a force along.
If to say couple you incline,
You’re clearly in the wrong.
'T is obvious, upon reflection,
A line is not a mere direction.

So couples with translations too
In all respects agree;
And thus there centres in the screw
A wondrous harmony
Of Kinematics and of statics,–
The sweetest thing in mathematics.

The forces on one given screw,
With motion on a second,
In general some work will do,
Whose magnitude is reckoned
By angle, force and what we call
The coefficent virtual.

Rotation now to force convert,
And force into rotation;
Unchanged the work, we can assert,
In spite of transformation.
And if two screws no work can claim,
Reciprocal will be their name.

Five numbers will a screw define,
A screwing motion, six;
For four will give the axial line,
One more the pitch will fix;
And hence we always can contrive
One screw reciprocal to five.

Screws-- two, three, or four combined
(No question here of six),
Yield other screws which are combined
Within one screw complex.
Thus we obtain the clearest notion
Of freedom and constraint of motion.

In complex III., three several screws
At every point you find,
Or if you one direction choose,
One screw is to your mind;
And complexes of order III.
Their own reciprocals may be.

In IV., wherever you arrive,
You find of screws a cone,
On every line in complex V.
There is precisely one;
At each point of this complex rich,
A plane of screws have given pitch.

But time would fail me to discourse
Of Order and Degree;
Of Impulse, Energy and Force,
And Reciprocity.
All these and more, for motions small,
Have been discussed by Dr. Ball.

–Anonymous.

atomom · October 4, 2007, 10:42pm

Yes, I love Dover Beach and Prufrock.

Here’s one for the doctors:

THE BED
A.D. Hope

The doctor loves the patient,
The patient loves his bed;
A fine place to be born in,
The best place to be dead.

The doctor loves the patient
Because he means to die;
The patient loves the patient bed
That shares his agony.

The bed adores the doctor,
His cool and skillful touch
Soon brings another patient
Who loves her just as much.

H always recites this one:

TO A YOUNG CHILD
Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

mathmom · October 4, 2007, 11:46pm

I love Dover Beach too, probably in my top ten. And Prufrock, well I lived at Prufrock House <a href=“http://www.its.caltech.edu/~prufrock/About/about.html[/url]”>http://www.its.caltech.edu/~prufrock/About/about.html</a> at Caltech. I have to love it. At my last high school reunion we had a wonderful meeting with my favorite English teacher where we all shared poems. (I still remember Mrs. Katz reciting “In just spring” and getting all excited about Joanie Mitchell too.) Anyway, the German exchange student from our year recited the entire text of Prufrock to us by heart. I was impressed!

mythmom · October 4, 2007, 11:55pm

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING.
by John Donne

AS virtuous men pass mildly away, 
And whisper to their souls to go, 
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
“Now his breath goes,” and some say, “No.”

So let us melt, and make no noise, 5
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys 
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ; 10
But trepidation of the spheres, 
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love 
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit 
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove 15
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is, 
Inter-assur

binx · October 5, 2007, 8:01am

When my kids were small, I came across this poem by Ruth Bell Graham. I liked it so much, I had it professionally calligraphied and framed.

For all these smallnesses
I thank you, Lord;

small children
and small needs;
small meals to cook,
small talk to heed,
and a small book
from which to read
small stories;
small hurts to heal,
small disappointments, too,
as real
as ours;
small glories
to discover
in bugs,
pebbles,
flowers.

When day is through
my mind is small,
my strength is gone;
and as I gather
each dear one
I pray, “Bless each
for Jesus’ sake -
such angels sleeping,
imps awake!”
What wears me out
are little things;
angels minus
shining wings.
Forgive me Lord,
if I have whined-
it takes so much
to keep them shined;
yet each small rub
has its reward,
for they have blessed me.

Thank you,
Lord

Mudder_s_Mudder · October 5, 2007, 8:49am

Binx, you remind me…

A much-loved hymn, which many will probably recognize:

Vertue
-George Herbert

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridall of the earth and skie:
The dew shall weep thy fall to night;
For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angrie and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye:
Thy root is ever in its grave
And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet dayes and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;
My musick shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

Onely a sweet and vertuous soul,
Like seasond timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

Mythmom, was there ever a more perfect love poem? The conceit of the two compasses, the parting that is not parting, that “dull” love without sadness cannot be grounded to joy:

“Dull sublunary lovers’ love
Whose soul is sensecannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.”

Count me as another Merrill lover, too.

binx · October 5, 2007, 10:05am

Mudder - I had never heard that Herbert poem; very nice.

Here’s one that’s a bit more popular, thanks to it’s use after one of the shuttle catastrophes, but still moves me. Hung on S1’s wall for years.

High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941

The author was only 18 when he wrote this poem, which he sent to a letter to his parents, after a test flight. He died 3 months later.

epistrophy · October 5, 2007, 10:21am

On The Death Of Friends In Childhood

We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven
Nor sunning themselves among the bald of hell;
If anywhere, in the deserted schoolyard at twilight,
forming a ring, perhaps, or joining hands
In games whose very names we have forgotten.
Come memory, let us seek them there in the shadows.

<hr>

Pantoum Of The Great Depression

Our lives avoided tragedy
Simply by going on and on,
Without end and with little apparent meaning.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.

Simply by going on and on
We managed. No need for the heroic.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.
I don’t remember all the particulars.

We managed. No need for the heroic.
There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.
I don’t remember all the particulars.
Across the fence, the neighbors were our chorus.

There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows
Thank god no one said anything in verse.
The neighbors were our only chorus,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.

At no time did anyone say anything in verse.
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.
No audience would ever know our story.

It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us.
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
What audience would ever know our story?
Beyond our windows shone the actual world.

We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
Somewhere beyond our windows shone the actual world.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.

And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
We did not ourselves know what the end was.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.
We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues.

But we did not ourselves know what the end was.
People like us simply go on.
We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues,
But it is by blind chance only that we escape tragedy.

And there is no plot in that; it is devoid of poetry.

SBmom · October 5, 2007, 11:48am

Love those two^^^

SBmom · October 5, 2007, 11:53am

This thread must have Whitman!!

Alu, Whitman may be the perfect marriage of modern verse with often-epic length.

I am stunned by Whitman, he takes my breath away. Here is a beautiful passage from “The Body Electric.”

I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly
round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.

There is something in staying close to men and women and looking
on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.

mythmom · October 5, 2007, 11:56am

Every atom belonging to me as good as belongs to you.

Alumother · October 5, 2007, 12:17pm

SBMom - yes, I love what you have copied here and I remember loving Whitman in high school.

Then I also loved Yeats. And Auden. And T.S. Eliot.

Here’s a poem I love now for wholly other reasons. Aluson, age 16, when asked in school to write in the style of Alfred Lord Tennyson…A poem by one who has not yet loved or lost. While I am the proudest mother in the world as far as my son’s gifts with language go, this is a little like Tennyson meets Worlds of Warcraft:).

Guinevere

Her eyelids lightly drooped speak multitudes
About the endless haze of ignorance,
Which now, her heart enveloped in the foods
Of wont temptation, shrouds her countenance.
Everything about her screams of life,
Yet through the sheen shines bright the shade of death;
Her beauty cuts through soldiers as a knife,
But all will weep when left without a breath.
And in this lady lies a paradox:
For though her being—radiant—may seem,
In actuality her golden locks
Evaporate as do awakened dreams.
And so, Sir Knight, it is just as I fear:
No man escapes the grasp of Guinevere.

SBmom · October 5, 2007, 12:46pm

whoa! (10 char)

SBmom · October 5, 2007, 1:03pm

mythmom, yes! So beautiful!

And this:

Thanks in old age - thanks ere I go,
For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air - for life, mere life
For precious ever-lingering memories (of you my mother dear - you father,
you brothers, sisters, friends,)
For all my days - not those of peace alone - the days of war the same
For gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign lands
For shelter wine and meat- for sweet appreciation,
(You distant dim unknown - or young or old - countless unspecified readers
belov’d,
We never met and ne’er shall meet - and yet our souls embrace, long,
close and long)…

atomom · October 5, 2007, 4:03pm

A couple more love poems for the not-so-young romantics:

LOVE SONG: I AND THOU
by Alan Dugan

Nothing is plumb, level or square:
the studs are bowed, the joists
are shaky by nature, no piece fits
any other piece without a gap
or pinch, and bent nails
dance all over the surfacing
like maggots. By Chirst
I am no carpenter. I built
the roof for myself, the walls
for myself, the floors
for myself, and got
hung up in it myself. I
danced with a purple thumb
at this house-warming, drunk
with my prime whiskey: rage.
Oh I spat rage’s nails
into the frame-up of my work:
it held. It settled plumb,
level, solid, square, and true
for that one moment. Then
it screamed and went on through
skewing as wrong the other way.
God damned it. This is hell,
but I planned it, I sawed it,
I nailed it, and I
will live in it until it kills me.
I can nail my left palm
to the left-hand cross-piece but
I can’t do everything myself.
I need a hand to nail the right,
a help, a love, a you, a wife.

To My Dear and Loving Husband
Anne Bradstreet

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompetence.
Thy love is such I can no way repay.
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

SBmom · October 5, 2007, 4:40pm

This poem blows me away:

First Love, by Sharon Olds 
(for Averell)

It was Sunday morning, I had the New York
Times spread out on my dormitory floor, its
black print dark silver on the
heels of my palms, it was Spring and I had the
dormer window of my room open, to
let it in, I even had the radio
on, I was letting it all in, the
tiny silvery radio voices - I
even let myself feel that it was Easter, the
dark flower of his life opening
again, his life being given back
again, I was in love and I could take it, the ink
staining my hands, the news on the radio
coming in my ears, there had been a wreck
and they said your name, son of the well-known they
said your name. Then they said where they’d
taken the wounded and the dead, and I called the
hospital, I remember kneeling by the
phone on the third-floor landing of the dorm, the
dark steep stairs down
next to me, I spoke to a young
man a young doctor there in the
Emergency Room, my open ear
pressed to the dark receiver, my open
life pressed to the world, I said
Which one of them died, and he said your name,
he was standing there in the room with you
saying your name.

I remember I leaned my
forehead against the varnished bars of the
baluster rails and held on,
pulling at the rails as if I wanted to
pull them together, shut them like a dark
door, close myself like a door
as you had been shut, closed off, but I could not
do it, the pain kept coursing through me like
life, like the gift of life.

mythmom · October 5, 2007, 5:19pm

<ol>
<li>(Carrion Comfort)</li>
</ol>

NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; 
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me

epistrophy · October 5, 2007, 8:24pm

Photograph from September 11
by Wislawa Szymborska

They jumped from the burning floors
one, two, a few more,
higher, lower.

The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them
above the earth toward the earth.

Each is still complete,
with a particular face
and blood well hidden.

Theres enough time
for hair to come loose,
for keys and coins
to fall from pockets.

Theyre still within the airs reach,
within the compass of places
that have just now opened.

I can do only two things for them
describe this flight
and not add a last line.

BalletGirl · October 5, 2007, 10:08pm

The apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun.
The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut
Like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut.
Fatigues with indolence, tiger and lion.

Lie still as the sun. The boa constrictor’s coil
Is a fossil. Cage after cage seems empty, or
Stinks of sleepers from the breathing straw.
It might be painted on a nursery wall.

But who runs like the rest past these arrives
At a cage where the crowd stands, stares, mesmerized,
As a child at a dream, at a jaguar hurrying enraged
Through prison darkness after the drills of his eyes

On a short fierce fuse. Not in boredom -
The eye satisfied to be blind in fire,
By the bang of blood in the brain deaf the ear -
He spins from the bars, but there’s no cage to him

More than to the visionary his cell:
His stride is wildernesses of freedom:
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come.

BalletGirl · October 5, 2007, 10:19pm

(d. Jan. 1939)

I

He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the air-ports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
O all the instruments agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed: he became his admirers.

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections;
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.

But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom;
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.

O all the instruments agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

II

You were silly like us: your gift survived it all;
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself; mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its saying where executives
Would never want to tamper; it flows south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.

III

Earth, receive an honoured guest;
William Yeats is laid to rest:
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

Time, that is intolerant
of the brave and innocent,
And indifferent in a week,
To a beautiful physique,
Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives;
Pardons cowardice, conceit,
Lays its honours at their feet.

Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well.

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining Voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;

With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

Poetry Corner

CONNECT WITH US